DOCSLIB.ORG

Quadrívium Revista Digital De Musicologia 10 (2019)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Quadrívium Revista Digital De Musicologia 10 (2019) QUADRÍVIUM REVISTA DIGITAL DE MUSICOLOGIA 10 (2019) The Arabic music migrated to the West Youssef Tannous Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (Lebanon) RESUM Tota música té característiques segons la civilització a la qual pertany i segons l’evolució del seu llenguatge musical i l’aculturació amb la música d’altres cultures. La música àrab té les seues pròpies característiques, especialment en l’àmbit melòdic, amb dotzenes de maqām- s, i en l’àmbit rítmic, amb les seues cent combinacions rítmiques, que defineix la seua identitat. En obrir-se a la música occidental des del segle XIX, va prendre elements d’aquesta música, com l’harmonia, la composició orquestral i les formes musicals. Per a presentar la seua música en l’estil occidental, alguns músics àrabs sacrificaren els maqām-s atemperats per a adequar-los al sistema musical temperat de la música occidental. Alguns ho consideren un enriquiment per a la música àrab; altres ho consideren una pèrdua de la identitat. Podria aquesta música occidentalitzada perdre la seua identitat? Podria servir a la música àrab tant com a la música occidental? Paraules Clau: Música; àrab; occidental; escala; mode; harmonització; temperament; polifonia; orquestració; arranjament RESUMEN Toda música tiene características según la civilización a la que pertenece y según la evolución de su lenguaje musical y su aculturación con la música de otras civilizaciones. La música árabe tiene sus propias características, especialmente a nivel melódico, con sus docenas de maqām-s, y a nivel rítmico, con sus cien combinaciones rítmicas, que definen su identidad. Al abrirse a la música occidental desde el siglo XIX, tomó prestados elementos de esta música, como la armonía, la composición orquestal y las formas musicales. Para presentar su música al estilo occidental, algunos músicos árabes sacrificaron los maqām-s atemperados para adecuarlos al sistema musical temperado de la música occidental. Algunos lo consideran un enriquecimiento para la música árabe; otros lo consideran una pérdida de su identidad. ¿Podría esta música occidentalizada perder su identidad? ¿Podría servir a la música árabe tanto como la música occidental? Palabras Clave: Música; árabe; occidental; escala; modo; armonización; temperamento; polifonía; orquestación; arreglo ABSTRACT Every music has characteristics according to the civilization to which it belongs and according to the evolution of its musical language and to its acculturation with other civilizations music. Arab music has its own characteristics, especially at the level of the melody with its dozens of maqām-s and at the level of rhythm with its hundred rhythmic combinations, that define its identity. By opening to the Western music since the nineteenth century, it borrowed elements of this music such as harmony, orchestral composition and musical forms. To present their music in the Western style, some Arab musicians sacrificed the non-tempered maqām-s of their music to be identified with the tempered musical system of Western music. Some consider it as enrichment for Arab music; others consider it as a loss of its identity. Could this westernized music lose its identity? Could it serve Arabic music as well as Western music? Keywords: music; Arabic; Western; maqām; scale; mode; harmonization; tempered; polyphony; orchestration; arrangement RECEPCIÓ / RECEPCIÓN / RECEIVED: octubre 2019 / octubre 2019 / October 2019 ACCEPTACIÓ / ACEPTACIÓN / ACCEPTANCE: novembre 2019 / noviembre 2019 / November 2019 QUADRÍVIUM- Revista Digital de Musicologia 2019 QDV 10 (2019) ISSN 1989-8851 The Arabic music migrated... Tannous, Youssef Introduction People impregnated with modal music seemed not to feel the need to apply harmonic rules to their monophonic melodies. Their musical instinct does not admit polyphony, their music is beautiful without harmony, and their ears are not satisfied because the melodic feelings are more dominant to them. The argument of savvy and conservative musicians is that Western harmony is not compatible with oriental modes and with micro-intervals. By opening to the Western music since the nineteenth century, Arabic musicians borrowed elements of this music such as harmony, orchestral composition, musical forms and instruments. To present their music in the Western style and forms, few of them sacrificed the non-tempered maqām-s/scales of their music to be identified with the tempered system of Western music. In the process of the music migration, there are music that move from one country to another without their original musicians (composers or performers) through technology and acculturation; on the other hand, there are musicians who emigrate and forget or no longer interpret their national music. Each music has its techniques, its characteristics, its forms, its temperament, its charm. The music acculturation was and still useful if it conserves the identity and the character of each music. Getting all music similar is an impoverishment. 1. The principal characteristics of Arabic music With the introduction of new styles and trends on Arab music under the pretext of "renewal", "development" or "globalization", a quick and concise presentation of the most important elements of the identity of Arabic music should be made, so that we can know the relevance of these new works. The most important characteristics of Arabic music are:1 - The maqām-s: Arabic music is a modal and monophonic music; it developed melodies in dozens of music scales called maqam-s when the composer uses some special techniques in his composition. Traditional Arabic music did not adopt the movement of the harmony and the polyphony. - The Singing: Arabic music is primarily lyrical. Except for the improvisation, musical instruments played an auxiliary role through the arrangements, before the adoption of Turkish musical forms (samā’i, bashraf, longa) and later one the occidental forms (sonata, concerto, etc). - The improvisation: Developed in a horizontal way, Arabic music advanced its melodies, scales, stances and rhythms, and established the vocal and instrumental improvisation as one of its principal characteristics. It enabled the performer to add some ornaments thus becoming a co-composer. - The oral tradition: The traditional Arabic music adopted the oral tradition in teaching and transferring heritage to new generations. - The non-tempered scale: The most scales of Arabic music are non-tempered ones. They have, like the 1 See: Farmer, Henry George (1988): Historical facts for the Arabian Musical Influence, Ayer Publishing; Touma, Habib Hassan (1996): The Music of the Arabs, trans. Laurie Schwartz, Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press; Maalouf, Shireen (2002): History of Arabic Music Theory: Change and Continuity in the Tone Systems, Genres, and Scales, Kaslik, Lebanon: Université Saint-Esprit; Erlanger, Baron Rodolphe (d') and Christian Poché (1930 (Reissue 2001)): La Musique arabe / Tome cinquième, Essai de codification des règles usuelles de la musique arabe moderne, échelle générale des sons, système modal, Published by Paris : P. Geuthner : Institut du Monde Arabe. 2 QDV 10 (2019) ISSN 1989-8851 The Arabic music migrated... Tannous, Youssef other oriental music, micro-intervals as the half-flat and half-sharp. - The trance, the enchantment (ṭarab).2 It describes the emotional effect of Arabic music and its artistic and aesthetic performance. 2. The Influence of Western Music on Arabic Music The introduction of Western musical instruments to the Arabic music initiated some changes in this music: - The small Arabic orchestra (takht) was replaced by the big band up to the full orchestra. - The fixed sound instruments used in Arabic music were pushed to modify the non-tempered Arabic musical scale and altered the capacity of the musical ear to distinguish between the original non-tempered tunes and their modified versions. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, certain eminent Arab musicians used some of the famous Western tunes, musical instruments and rhythms. They used them with great caution, art and experience, so that their music and songs preserved the Arab music identity. Mohamad Abdel Wahab3 and Rahbani Brothers4 are among the pioneers of this music trend. As an example, Ziad Rahbani5 quoted the entrance melody of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 26 of Franz Liszt7 and built on a new music with an oriental and modern arrangement that combines the scales of Western and Arabic music.8 3. Altering the Western musical scales to Eastern ones Modifying the music scales is an old process that had multiple causes. There are composers who have written a variety of music on a known melody; there are musicians who have changed the character of a complete melody by playing or singing it on a non-tempered musical scale. Since the sixteenth century, Western missionaries from France and Italy brought chants with them to Lebanon and the Middle East. They translated the original texts to Arabic or wrote Arabic poems while maintaining the original melodies. The Lebanese in their oriental music and temperament modified the scale in non-tempered intervals. I recall, for example, the chant Conditor alme siderum. Conditor alme siderum is a Sequence hymn for the season of Advent from the 9th century; Guillaume Dufay9 rewrote 2 Ṭarab is the emotional effect of music, associated with a traditional form and aesthetic of Arabic music. For more details see: Jonathan H. Shannon (2003): “Emotion, Performance, and Temporality in Arab Music: Reflections on Tarab”, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb. 2003),
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio Between the US and Syria
    Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Beau Bothwell All rights reserved ABSTRACT Song, State, Sawa: Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell This dissertation is a study of popular music and state-controlled radio broadcasting in the Arabic-speaking world, focusing on Syria and the Syrian radioscape, and a set of American stations named Radio Sawa. I examine American and Syrian politically directed broadcasts as multi-faceted objects around which broadcasters and listeners often differ not only in goals, operating assumptions, and political beliefs, but also in how they fundamentally conceptualize the practice of listening to the radio. Beginning with the history of international broadcasting in the Middle East, I analyze the institutional theories under which music is employed as a tool of American and Syrian policy, the imagined youths to whom the musical messages are addressed, and the actual sonic content tasked with political persuasion. At the reception side of the broadcaster-listener interaction, this dissertation addresses the auditory practices, histories of radio, and theories of music through which listeners in the sonic environment of Damascus, Syria create locally relevant meaning out of music and radio. Drawing on theories of listening and communication developed in historical musicology and ethnomusicology, science and technology studies, and recent transnational ethnographic and media studies, as well as on theories of listening developed in the Arabic public discourse about popular music, my dissertation outlines the intersection of the hypothetical listeners defined by the US and Syrian governments in their efforts to use music for political ends, and the actual people who turn on the radio to hear the music.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Sounds, Private Spaces: Towards a Fairouz Museum in Zokak El­Blat
    OIS 3 (2015) ± Divercities: Competing Narratives and Urban Practices in Beirut, Cairo and Tehran Mazen Haidar and Akram Rayess Public Sounds, Private Spaces: Towards a Fairouz Museum in Zokak el-Blat Figure 1: Young Nouhad Haddad (Fairouz) to the right, with one of the neighbours, on the staircase of her family©s house in Zokak el Blat in the late 1940s. Source: Fairouz 1981 USA Tour catalogue. <1> The idea of dedicating a museum to Fairouz, the famous singer and doyenne of musical theatre in Lebanon, at her childhood home in Beirut has circulated in the local media for several years.1 The persistent media 1 A variety of articles and television reports from Lebanese and Arab newspapers and TV stations from 2009 to 2015 have covered the issue of the "Fairouz Museum" in Beirut, in parallel to studies and research conducted by institutions and civil society associations such as MAJAL ± see for instance MAJAL Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Urban Conservation in Zokak el-Blat (Université de Balamand, 2012) ± and Save Beirut Heritage. Among these we mention the following media resources: Chirine Lahoud, "The House where a Star was Born", Daily Star, Beirut, 18 June 2013; Haifa Lizenzhinweis: Dieser Beitrag unterliegt der Creative-Commons-Lizenz Namensnennung-Keine kommerzielle Nutzung-Keine Bearbeitung (CC-BY-NC-ND), darf also unter diesen Bedingungen elektronisch benutzt, übermittelt, ausgedruckt und zum Download bereitgestellt werden. Den Text der Lizenz erreichen Sie hier: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de campaign, initiated by a number of associations and activists calling for the preservation of plots 565 and 567, the cadastral numbers of the two properties on which Fairouz©s childhood home was located, came to fruition when the endangered nineteenth-century mansion in the Zokak el-Blat district was declared a building of public interest.2 <2> This paper discusses Fairouz©s house as part of a contested urban space, and the multiple readings and interpretations of Beirut©s architectural heritage that have arisen in this contentious context.
    [Show full text]
  • Aksam Alyousef
    “Harvesting Thorns”: Comedy as Political Theatre in Syria and Lebanon by Aksam Alyousef A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Drama University of Alberta © Aksam Alyousef, 2020 ii ABSTRACT At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 70s, political comedy grew exponentially in Syria and Lebanon. This phenomenon was represented mainly in the Tishreen Troupe ,(مسرح الشوك performances of three troupes: Thorns Theatre (Al-Shuk Theatre مسرح and Ziyad Al-Rahbani Theatre (Masrah Ziyad Al-Rahbani ,(فرقة تشرين Ferqet Tishreen) These works met with great success throughout the Arab world due to the audacity .(زياد الرحباني of the themes explored and their reliance on the familiar traditions of Arab popular theatre. Success was also due to the spirit of the first Arab experimental theatre established by pioneers like Maroun Al-Naqqash (1817-1855) and Abu Khalil Al-Qabbani (1835-1902), who in the second half of the nineteenth century mixed comedy, music, songs and dance as a way to introduce theatre performance to a culture unaccustomed to it. However, this theatre started to lose its luster in the early 1990s, due to a combination of political and cultural factors that will be examined in this essay. iii This thesis depends on historical research methodology to reveal the political, social and cultural conditions that led to the emergence and development (and subsequent retreat) of political theatre in the Arab world. My aim is to, first, enrich the Arab library with research material about this theatre which lacks significant critical attention; and second to add new material to the Western Library, which is largely lacking in research about modern and contemporary Arab theatre and culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Botschafterin Der Sterne | Norient.Com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41
    Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41 Botschafterin der Sterne by Thomas Burkhalter Die libanesische Sängerin Fairuz ist die Ikone des libanesischen Liedes. Mit ihren Komponisten, den Gebrüdern Rahbani, hat sie der libanesischen Musik und Kultur eine starke Identität gegeben. Die Sängerin Fairuz und ihre Komponisten Assy und Mansour Rahbani gelten im Libanon als nationale, kulturelle und politische Symbole. Ab den 50er Jahren verpasste das Trio der libanesischen Musik eine starke Identität und vermochte sich von der vorherrschenden Kulturszene Ägypten abzutrennen. Heute jedoch, elf Jahre nach dem Bürgerkrieg, kämpft die Musikszene Libanon etwas orientierungslos gegen eine wirtschaftliche Misere an. Ein Gespräch mit dem 2009 verstorbenen Mansour Rahbani. https://norient.com/podcasts/fairuz Page 1 of 8 Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41 Diese Sendung wurde ausgestrahlt am 25.1.2002 in der Sendung Musik der Welt auf Schweizer Radio DRS2. Hintergrundinfos zu Fairuz Rezension eines wunderbaren Fairuz-Buches von Ines Weinrich. Von Thomas Burkhalter. Ines Weinrich, Fayruz und die Rahbani Brüder – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2006. Fayruz is much more than just a Lebanese singer; her name stands for a concept with musical, poetical and political connotations: This is the leitmotiv in Ines Weinrichs book on Fayruz, the Diva of Lebanese singing, and her composers Asi and Mansour Rahbani. Through the analysis of their work, the book «Fayruz und die Brüder Rahbani – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon» tracks down significant processes in the history of Lebanon since its formal independence in 1943. It reveals a nation that is continuously searching for its identity and position in the regional and global setting.
    [Show full text]
  • Botschafterin Der Sterne | Norient.Com 27 Sep 2021 12:39:25
    Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 27 Sep 2021 12:39:25 Botschafterin der Sterne by Thomas Burkhalter Die libanesische Sängerin Fairuz ist die Ikone des libanesischen Liedes. Mit ihren Komponisten, den Gebrüdern Rahbani, hat sie der libanesischen Musik und Kultur eine starke Identität gegeben. Die Sängerin Fairuz und ihre Komponisten Assy und Mansour Rahbani gelten im Libanon als nationale, kulturelle und politische Symbole. Ab den 50er Jahren verpasste das Trio der libanesischen Musik eine starke Identität und vermochte sich von der vorherrschenden Kulturszene Ägypten abzutrennen. Heute jedoch, elf Jahre nach dem Bürgerkrieg, kämpft die Musikszene Libanon etwas orientierungslos gegen eine wirtschaftliche Misere an. Ein Gespräch mit dem 2009 verstorbenen Mansour Rahbani. https://norient.com/index.php/podcasts/fairuz Page 1 of 8 Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 27 Sep 2021 12:39:25 Diese Sendung wurde ausgestrahlt am 25.1.2002 in der Sendung Musik der Welt auf Schweizer Radio DRS2. Hintergrundinfos zu Fairuz Rezension eines wunderbaren Fairuz-Buches von Ines Weinrich. Von Thomas Burkhalter. Ines Weinrich, Fayruz und die Rahbani Brüder – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2006. Fayruz is much more than just a Lebanese singer; her name stands for a concept with musical, poetical and political connotations: This is the leitmotiv in Ines Weinrichs book on Fayruz, the Diva of Lebanese singing, and her composers Asi and Mansour Rahbani. Through the analysis of their work, the book «Fayruz und die Brüder Rahbani – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon» tracks down significant processes in the history of Lebanon since its formal independence in 1943. It reveals a nation that is continuously searching for its identity and position in the regional and global setting.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Sha'bi Music: Globalization, Mass Media and Popular Music in the Arab World
    WOMEN IN SHA'BI MUSIC: GLOBALIZATION, MASS MEDIA AND POPULAR MUSIC IN THE ARAB WORLD DANA F. ACEE A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC December 2011 Committee: David Harnish, Advisor Kara Attrep © 2011 Dana F. Acee All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT David Harnish, Advisor This thesis focuses on sha’bi music, a style of popular music in the Arab world. More specifically, it discusses the role of women in sha’bi music, focusing on singers Nancy Ajram and Haifa Wehbe as examples of female pop singers. I take a feminist approach to understanding the lives, images, and legacies of two of the most influential female singers of the twentieth century, Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, and then I explore how these legacies have impacted the careers and societal expectations of Ajram and Wehbe. Several issues are explicated in the thesis, including the historic progression of popular music, the impacts of globalization and westernization, and the status of women as performers in the Arab world. The fan bases of the various female sha’bi singers are explored to examine why people are drawn to popular music, how youth cultures utilize music to define their generations, and why some people in the Arab world have problems with this music and/or with the singers: their lyrics, clothing, dancing bodies, and music videos. My ethnography on these issues among Arabs in Bowling Green, Ohio, reveals how members of the diaspora address the tensions of this music and the images of female performers.
    [Show full text]
  • Malouma Creative Teachers Intelligent Students Real Learning GUIDE 04
    real learning intelligent students creative teachers Education Education Malouma and the Sahel Hawl Blues 04 Youth 05 TEACHER RESOURCE GUIDE About UMS UMS gratefully acknowledges the One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the coun- following corporations, foundations try, UMS serves diverse audiences through multi- and government agencies for their disciplinary performing arts programs in three distinct but generous support of the UMS Youth interrelated areas: presentation, creation, and education. Education Program: With a program steeped in music, dance, and theater, Ford Motor Company Fund UMS hosts approximately 80 performances and 150 free Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural educational activities each season. UMS also commissions new work, sponsors artist residencies, and organizes Affairs collaborative projects with local, national as well as many University of Michigan international partners. Arts at Michigan Arts Midwest While proudly affiliated with the University of Michigan Borders Group and housed on the Ann Arbor campus, UMS is a separate Chelsea Flowers not-for-profit organization that supports itself from ticket Community Foundation for sales, grants, contributions, and endowment income. Southeastern Michigan Doris Duke Charitable Foundation UMS Education and Heartland Arts Fund JazzNet Audience Development MASCO Corporation Department THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION (of R. & P. Heydon) UMS’s Education and Audience Development Department Margot Campos Designs seeks to deepen the relationship between audiences and Music for Little People art, as well as to increase the impact that the perform- National Dance Project of New England ing arts can have on schools and community. The pro- Foundation for the Arts gram seeks to create and present the highest quality arts National Endowment for the Arts education experience to a broad spectrum of community Office of the Senior Vice Provost for constituencies, proceeding in the spirit of partnership and Academic Affairs, University of collaboration.
    [Show full text]
  • Aswat Zellerbach Hall (“Voices”)
    Cal Performances Presents Program Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 8pm Aswat Zellerbach Hall (“Voices”) Aswat PROGRAM (“Voices”) Mohammad Abdel Wahhab (1907–1991) Fakkaruni Wadi’ Al-Safi (b. 1921) Jannat Al-Safi Weili Laou Yidrun Wahhab Sakana l-Layl Zakariyya Ahmad (1896–1961) Il Wardi Gamil Assi Rahbani (1923–1986) & Mansour Rahbani (1925–2009) Sahrit Hubb INTERMISSION Celebrating the Golden Age of Arab Music & Cinema Farid Al-Atrash (1915–1974) Kahramana starring Al-Atrash Layalil Unsi Fi Vienna Ibrahim Azzam Ahmad Ana Fi Intidharak Malleit Sonia M’barek Wahhab Ya Wardi Min Yishtirik Khalil Abonula Rima Khcheich Al-Atrash Ma ‘Alli w-‘Ultillu Wahhab Ya Di n-Na’im Simon Shaheen, director Presented in Association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan. Cal Performances’ 2008–2009 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank. 4 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 5 Program Notes Cast Aswat Repertoire The Aswat Orchestra Fakkaruni (“Remind Me”) This traditional Arab orchestra features virtuoso instrumentalists playing violins, ouds, double An instrumental arrangement of a vocal master- an instrumental dance performed in his filmAfrita bass, cello, nay, qanun (zither) and percussion under the direction of maestro Simon Shaheen, piece composed in 1966 by Mohammad Abdel Hanim (“Jinni”), produced in Egypt in 1949. It was recreating the sound of the Golden Age. Wahhab and sung by Egyptian diva Um Kulthum. composed for dancer and actress Samia Gamal, The song starts with a lengthy introduction and in- who played the main role next to Al-Atrash. Director, Violin Simon Shaheen cludes several interludes that link together to form a fantastic instrumental.
    [Show full text]
  • Westminsterresearch Song Is the Secret of of Existence: Fairouz And
    WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Song is the Secret of of Existence: Fairouz and the Arab Diaspora in London and Doha Issa, D. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Ms Dima Issa, 2019. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: ((http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] SONG IS THE SECRET OF EXISTENCE: FAIROUZ AND THE ARAB DIASPORA IN LONDON AND DOHA DIMA ISSA A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY July 2019 Abstract Nestling in the hearts and minds of her listeners, the Lebanese singer and performer, Fairouz, travels across land and seas, offering gentle reminders of the past or inspiring hope for the future. With the objective of exploring the role that Fairouz plays in the lives of the Arab diaspora, this project examines possible identity constructions and concepts of belonging, investigating how Fairouz factors in diasporic space and how her music offers opportunities to navigate individual and social positions in such space. Through an ethnographic study, focusing on in-depth interviews, narratives of 59 members of the Arab diaspora living in Doha, Qatar and London, England were heard, understood and categorised thematically, highlighting how music can elucidate and situate experiences of migration, positioning listeners on a fluctuating continuum, which moves beyond standard private and public lines of domesticity, nationalism and religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon
    Herstone-FM.qxd 6/8/07 12:19 PM Page i POPULAR CULTURE AND NATIONALISM IN LEBANON Based on an award-winning thesis, Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon is a pioneering study of musical theater and popular culture and its relation to the production of identity in Lebanon in the second half of the twentieth century. In the aftermath of the departure of the French from Lebanon and the civil violence of 1958, the Rahbani Brothers (Asi and Mansour) staged a series of folkloric musical-theatrical extravaganzas at the annual Baalbeck Festival which highlighted the talents of Asi’s wife, the Lebanese diva Fairouz, arguably the most famous living Arab singer. The inclusion of these folkloric vignettes into the Festival’s otherwise European-dominated cultural agenda created a powerful nation-building combination of what Partha Chatterjee calls the “appropriation of the popular” and the “classicization of tradition.” This musical-theatrical movement coincided with the confluence of increasing internal and external migration in Lebanon, as well as with the rapid development of mass-media technology, of which the Baalbeck Festival can be seen as an extension. Employing theories of nationalism, modernity, globalism, and locality, the book shows that these factors combined to give the project a potent, if not always constructive, identity-forming power. Small wonder then that with the start of the civil war in 1975 would come the collapse of this project. In the ashes of these events Ziad Rahbani, the son of Fairouz and Asi, began to author, compose, and star in his own series of exceedingly popular musical plays.
    [Show full text]
  • Tomorrow You Will See How Beautiful Our Home Is
    48 al-raida Issue 122 - 123 | Summer / Fall 2008 Tomorrow You Will See How Beautiful Our Home Is Hanan Kassab-Hassan I fear, when I talk about Fairouz, that I might slip into a nostalgic mode, or slip unwittingly into that translucid spot where childhood images mesh with the scents and sounds of cities, and that I might begin my discourse about Fairouz and end up by confounding Beirut with Damascus. Has Fairouz not always brought us together? Her voice is an inseparable part of the city, particularly when Damascus would wait the whole year for September, and when Beirut was only a by-way to Antelias, as if the traveler had only one destination, namely, her residence overlooking Rabieh. “You’ll see tomorrow, you’ll see how beautiful our home is ...”1 I always had a child-like conviction that she was singing that song only for us every time we used to journey to the Rahbani residence. For when we arrive there, it indeed was beautiful, and Fairouz used to greet us on the terrace with coffee cups in her hands. Fairouz sings about a little house in Canada nowadys. Did she favor snow over sunshine? Did she decide to travel? This song has stirred much controversy and has made headline news. The world would collapse if Fairouz were to leave for Canada! Fairouz in one of her concerts. Picture Credit: Marwan Assaf Fairouz is not Canada-bound, simply because the said ditty is a translation of “Ma Cabane au and the singer a woman, as is the case with Samra Canada”, but when it is delivered by Fairouz, it yam ‘uyun was’ah (i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • Maintaining a Musical Tradition in Arab-America: an Oral History of Abdel Karim Bader
    MAINTAINING A MUSICAL TRADITION IN ARAB-AMERICA: AN ORAL HISTORY OF ABDEL KARIM BADER By Igor Nunes Houwat A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Musicology 2011 ABSTRACT MAINTAINING A MUSICAL TRADITION IN ARAB-AMERICA: AN ORAL HISTORY OF ABDEL KARIM BADER By Igor Nunes Houwat Abdel Karim Bader, a cosmopolitan oud performer and teacher, was born in the Arab world in the early 1920s and immigrated to the United States of America in the early nineteen seventies. This thesis is an oral history that explores Bader as a carrier of an Arabic musical tradition, tarab, through three topics: biography, pedagogy, and improvisation. Bader’s biography unveils a rich social and musical persona which is understood through the lens of tarab musicianship and values. He favors a pragmatic apprenticeship method, common to tarab musicians, that heavily relies on oral methods to transmit ideas, repertoire, and stylistic subtleties. Finally, Bader’s improvisatory thought is influenced by both his knowledge of Arabic music theory and his performance experience, and it is exposed through examples from my lessons and an analysis of a solo improvisation. I have been Bader’s apprentice since January 2010 and view this study as a contribution to a little-known facet of Arab-American identity and cultural practice. Copyright by IGOR NUNES HOUWAT 2011 To Abdel Karim Bader iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................................vii
    [Show full text]